Saturday, January 12, 2013

This past holiday season, I experimented with lots of different nail polish designs. I have always loved nail polish, however, this is the first time in years that I have had time to paint my nails! When I was in college, I was taking a lot of 'crafty' classes for my art and design majors, so, polish was just a lost cause. Also, the years I spent working in retail just didn't cut it for nail polish. It would last, what, 2 days before the first chip? And that was just if I was lucky. Now that my job involves typing, it tends to last longer. And now, I don't mind so much spending the time to paint them perfectly, knowing that they will actually last through the week. Here are some of my recent polishes:

Christmas Nails

Over the Christmas holiday, I had these on my nails. This design lasted three weeks! I had this color in well into the New Year, without chipping, and finally decided to just take it off. It took about 6 cotton balls with polish remover to get it off, though, because it was so hardy. For this, I used the following: Wet and Wild 223C, 224C, Clear.

First Coat: Paint your nails with 223C, the gold glitter. Let dry. This is so when you paint with 224C, the yellow, the glitter will show through.

Second Coat: Paint your nails with 224C, the yellow polish.
Let dry.

Third Coat: Paint your nails with 223C, the gold glitter again. They should be super sparkly now.
You can skip to step 5, if you do not wish to have the yellow tips.

Fourth Coat: Do the french tips with 224 C, the yellow.

Top Coat: Paint with your choice of "clear" nail polish (I used the above). This is important, because the glitter tends to fall off some without the clear coating.

New Years Nails

I followed the glittery inspiration from the Christmas Nails, but this time chose a blue color inspired by how snow sparkles, and how the color of the sky looks as the sun goes down this time around 4pm. For this look, I used the following polishes: Wet and Wild Clear, Sinful Colors Lets Talk, and Hottie.

First Coat: Do one layer of Lets Talk, the solid shiny blue. Let dry. I start with this instead of the glitter because with the dark color of the nail polish,
it takes more than one coat to get the full depth of the color.

Second Coat: Do one layer of Hottie, the glitter, and let dry.

Third Coat: Do another layer of Lets Talk, the solid shiny blue. You should be able to see the glitter through the blue.
Let dry.

Fourth Coat: Do a final coat of Hottie, the glitter, and let dry. You should be able to see what appears to be glitter from all depths: The ones on the first layer will appear farther away, but still shine in the light, and the ones in the top layer will be the most shiny.

Top Coat: Put on your favorite "clear" polish (I used the above) to prevent the glitter from chipping off. I also find that with this particular brand, the luster of the the "clear" part of the glitter polish is kind of dull, so adding another layer of a different "clear" polish makes it much more shiny.

Winter Gradient Nails

I did these this week, dropping the glitter as it is now almost two weeks into the New Year. It is still very much Winter here, so I wanted to keep the dark colors, but I couldn't decide which dark color to choose from. Solution? I chose three. I used Sinful Colors again, which come with a bit of luster (tiny glitter) in them. So, still slightly glittery, but not in-your-face glittery. Unfortunately, Sinful Colors: #10 Aqua, appears to have been discontinued. So, I'll link you to a different brand which as a similar color. Here are the polishes I used: Sinful Colors Lets Talk and 926HD. For Turquoise, OPI Ogre-The Top Blue.